Breathless
by Mystwalker
Summary: From separation to reunion to everything after, Aerith and Zack go through thirty breathtaking moments. Prompts are from the 30 Breathtakes challenge on Livejournal. The collection is set in my Another Side AU.


**Breathless**

**By:**

**Mystwalker**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Final Fantasy VII.

**A/N: **So, some of you might be wondering why I'm doing all of these and not updating **Side Stories**. And the reason is…well, I don't really have a reason. Aside from the fact that Sephiroth is touchy about his hair. Also, I realized that I needed some practice writing Zerith and Cloti, and good romance. But Cloti gets a lot of attention elsewhere in the fandom, sooooo….

Oh, look, Zerith fluff!

I don't see these getting M-rated, but due to the nature of the prompts involved, I do feel like cautioning people that some of these might at least be a high T, with some implications.

Like this chapter, for instance. Enjoy.

As a little bit of an extra challenge to myself, I've decided to put my playlist of shuffle and use the first song as inspiration for the prompts. In case anyone's interested, the song that came up for this was **It's Time **by **Imagine Dragons. **

XxXxX

**Theme 24: Intoxicating**

Someone, Kunsel probably, had once warned him that what he felt for Aerith was much stronger than what she felt for him. It had been a casual comment, exchanged over drinks after a mission when all he wanted to do was run down to the slums and see her. In its own way, he supposed the comment had been true. But he didn't care. In his mind, all that mattered was that Aerith felt something for him, something that made her want to stay with him. It wasn't until those dark days in the basement, when he had nothing but pain and his thoughts of her to sustain him, when he realized how much he really did feel for her.

Angeal, Sephiroth, Cissnei, Cloud, Tseng, all the other people important to him—they made him feel like more than he was. That he could be something greater. But Aerith…

Aerith made him feel human.

The first time he looked into her eyes again, after coming back to Midgar, he felt like he was drowning. Her eyes were a bright, bright brilliant green, and even though the world was literally crashing around them, he couldn't find it in himself to look away. He was drunk on her, on her presence, on the sound of her voice, on the nearness of her, and if it wasn't for Marlene's presence and the fact that several tons of metal were about to fall on their heads, he might have pulled her into his arms there and then.

Aerith had always known how to take his breath away.

But that didn't mean he'd forgotten what had been said to him then, or that he failed to see the truth of it. Sometimes, Zack wondered what made Aerith stay with him. It wasn't that she had any lack of options. She could be quite flirty when she wanted to be, and he knew he was the last on a long string of admirers. She already had Tseng wrapped around her little finger, and he knew for a fact that if it weren't for Tifa, she wouldn't have a hard time getting Cloud to fall for her either. Kunsel had frequently checked on her while Zack was gone, and the two of them were close. Heck, if he squinted, even her friendship with Sephiroth could take on a whole other meaning.

And yet, she'd waited for him. Written letters to him. 89. And even when he'd failed to respond to her last one, when she herself had confessed to deciding to move on, she hadn't actually done it. There was no rival in Midgar for him to contend with, no one who had stolen Aerith's heart. In fact, he had the sneaking suspicion that if he'd actually died in the Wasteland, his closest contender for Aerith's affections would have been Cloud.

One night, when they had managed to slip away from the group, find a spot for themselves in a clearing under the trees while everyone else slept, he'd asked her why. She shifted in his arms so that she could look up at him, the moonlight reflecting against her eyes and playing on her skin. "I waited for you," she said, her fingers brushing against his cheek. "I knew you weren't dead. Maybe I didn't feel like moving on." He didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything. Instead, he caught her hand, kissed her fingers, drew her closer to him. He wanted to burn the image of her into memory, to close his eyes and still see her. He didn't want to dream of the mako cylinders anymore. He wanted to dream of her eyes.

He pressed his lips to hers, drawing her in, drinking in her breath while she left him breathless. The taste of her was intoxicating, and he wanted more. He'd always want more of her, he thought, for as long as she'd have him. His fingers fumbled with the clasp of her dress and she laughed and moved to help him, and he thought that it didn't matter which of them had the stronger feelings, as long as there were feelings there and they were strong and he could be with her like this.

XxXxX

Sometimes, Aerith saw blue when she closed her eyes.

_The blue of the sky, _she'd tell herself, back when she was still in Midgar, selling flowers on the street and pretending that she wasn't waiting for someone to appear at her church door. But even then, she knew it was a lie. When she was alone, tending to her flowers, or just sitting on the wooden floors of the church, contemplating, she could hear his voice accompanying them.

"_Eyes infused with mako energy. A SOLDIER trademark…" _

It was in moments like those that she would smile, and write her letters. The days grew longer and shorter and longer again, she grew older and stronger and more tired, and her signature pink outfit began to come together piece by piece, and still, Aerith wrote her letters. She remembered writing them until her hands felt tired, until she didn't know what to write anymore, and each time she handed them to Tseng, she believed less and less that that letter would be the one that would reach him. The flower cart in the corner of the church grew dust, her hands grew callouses from the staff she'd taken up to protect herself with, and still, Zack didn't come back.

And she remembered the anger, the frustration she felt with him for not coming back to her, and with herself for not being able to let go. _You promised, _she'd think sometimes, staring at the broken cart. _You promised we'd sell flowers under the open sky someday. _If she closed her eyes, it felt like just yesterday, and she could feel him there with her, but she knew if she opened her eyes, she'd be alone, with nothing but dust and her memories.

_Where did you go, Zack…? _

The days came and went, with no sign of him. Kunsel offered to fix the cart. She said no. A boy down the street worked up the courage to ask her out. She said no. Tseng continued to watch from the shadows, asking her every now and then if she'd consider coming with him to Shinra. She'd become very good at saying no by that point. And each day she would get up, look at herself in the mirror, and tell herself that today would be the day she let go of him. She almost did.

But then he was standing in front of her again, and all of that ceased to matter.

Then he came for her, saved her from Hojo, brought her out of Midgar, underneath the open sky, and nothing mattered anymore.

Ancient. Cetra. _Different. _

Those words had become such a part of her that even in the slums, even though she pretended, she could tell that she could never be able to separate herself from them. She'd heard them so often, from Hojo and then from Tseng and the other Turks, from the President, that it was hard to believe that she was still human. But when Zack looked at her…

When Zack looked at her, it was clear that she was all he could see. Just her. Aerith. Nothing else, no one else. When he looked at her, it made her feel…whole. Human. It made her feel like more than just a pretty face, more than a curiosity, more than the last survivor of a race she didn't understand. It took her breath away.

And that was why, she thought as she lay beside him, listening to his quiet breathing and running her thumb gently over his knuckle where their hands were joined together.

_That's why I can't ever let you go._


End file.
